On the Other Side
by XxKusuriXx
Summary: Darkness… All I have ever seen is darkness… All I’ve ever known is silence… Occasionally I will hear a scratching or a small shuffling… And it scared me. It makes me know that I’m not alone in this place… But, what’s with me?
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

**Darkness**

Darkness… All I have ever seen is darkness… All I've ever known is silence… Occasionally I will hear a scratching or a small shuffling… And it scared me. It makes me know that I'm not alone in this place… But, what's with me?

I've always wondered… Is this all there is? I've never known anything else, like I said but… If I know there is darkness there must be light… Right?

Something else I've always wondered… Who am I? What's my name? What do I look like? I can't remember… Did I ever have one? I don't think I did, so I've decided one. Ariel. Don't ask how I decided on that, because I don't really know…

This is how my life has always been. I have always spent my time in the Darkness, pondering about everything. But one day something happened. Something burning and bright fell on me. Light. I tried to open my eyes and look around and see where I had always been, but as soon as I tried to open them, I snapped them shut again.

This was my first experience of pain.

I felt something on my shoulder. A hand maybe? And then for the first time, I heard something other than a small shuffling. A voice. It was deep and soft. "What's your name, little one?"

I had been waiting for this. "Ariel..." I croaked, my voice almost breaking. More pain. Why was everything hurting now.

"Ariel, do you want to stay here?" he, as I had determined from the voice, asked.

Did I? I wasn't really sure… Here life was safe. Out there, I didn't know what would happen. But… "No…" I was willing to try it.

"Would you like to come with me, Ariel?" he asked in that same soft voice.

This is what I believed to be my first glimpse of kindness.

Slowly, I nodded. I felt a hand slip around my head and something settle over my eyes. "What's this?" I asked.

"This is to stop the pain."

I didn't stop him when he tied the silk thing around my head. I would do anything to stop that unbearable pain from before…

As he led me toward the light, pushing his hand into the small of my back, I realized something. I was leaving everything I knew and… I didn't care. This man was going to make my life better.

…Wasn't he?


	2. Chapter One

Slowly, I found myself waking up. For a moment, I thought all of my freedom had been a dream. Then I realized I wasn't lying on a cold, hard floor. Instead, I was lying on something soft and I was warm… I slowly opened my eyes. There was something over them… Why? Oh, that's right…

I reached back and untied the material and let it fall to my lap. I slowly opened my eyes, keeping them narrow. There was only a little light in this room, coming from a small lamp in the corner. I stood and looked around the room. There wasn't much. There was the small bed I had just been in and that lamp in the corner. There was a small desk too.

What really caught my interest was the tall mirror sitting beside the desk. I walked slowly over to it and stood there, staring into it. In the mirror was a girl of twelve or so will long silver hair, going way past mid-back. Purple eyes were staring out of the pale face. The girl was dressed in a simple white dress.

…Was this really me? I looked so… washed out… I raised one of my hands and touched my hair. The reflection reached up as well, brushing its fingers through its hair. I watched the face distort in a scowled. I turned and began searching through the drawers of the desk.

There was a lot of junk. Rubber bands, pencils, pens, and random scraps of paper, but there was what I wanted. I pulled out a knife that was most likely used as a letter opener. It was dull… but it would work.

I walked back to the mirror and pulled some of my hair to the front. I brought the knife up and chopped. Long locks of hair fell to the ground. I continued this until there was a pile of hair at my feet. I looked at myself now. My hair was cut to just below my ears, mostly.

It looked messy… And I loved it. I looked different and I felt like I was more alive. Now that I think about it, I look a lot like a boy.

I heard the door open and looked back. He stood their. This was the first time I had seen him. It was surprising. I had imagined him as an old man with graying hair. But here stood a man looking no older than twenty one. His hair wasn't grey, more like dark green and his eyes weren't kind blue like I had imagined, instead they were silver. I starred at him quietly, not speaking.

He came forward and stood behind me. His reflection and mine were in the mirror, both starring expressionlessly. "Ah. I see you've discovered yourself, Ariel."

"Yes…" I tried to think of what would be good to say at the moment. I was drawing a blank.

"Why did you chop off all you hair?" he asked.

"I didn't like how I looked. It wasn't like I thought I should look like. It didn't suit my personality," I murmured. I reached a hand and ran my fingers through my hair. He nodded. I looked at his reflection for a moment. "Do you mind if I ask a question?" He nodded again. "You know my name. What's yours?"

He smiled softly. "My name is Farren."

"One more question… Why did you bring me here?" I asked.

"Ah. You are a very sharp girl. Follow me." He walked towards the door, and I followed him as commanded. I hissed as the bright light coming through a window hit my eyes. I raised my hands, covering my face. "Oh, I had almost forgotten. Your eyes are sensitive." He moved my hands and tied the cloth over my face again. He took my elbow and led me along.

He softly pushed me down onto a… couch? I guess that was what it was. I felt him sit down beside me. "Ariel, you are of a dieing species." Species… I didn't like how he said that. It was like I was an animal… "Each member of your species has a very special powers." …That made me feel a little better. "But, you have a flaw." Did I say I felt better? Never mind. "You are a nobody, Ariel. Your species is heartless."

I raised a hand a rested it over where my heart was, or where it should have been. I felt a thump against my hand. "But… I can feel my heart beating…"

"Biologically, you do have a heart. But you cannot feel. Feelings are what flaw humans, but without them, you should feel no regret. No love." He explained it like he had studied it in school. Maybe he had.

"No feelings…" That didn't make since. I did have feelings… I felt fear, I felt… I felt everything. I felt… happy when he took me out of the darkness. Did… Did I just imagine it all?

"To answer your question of why I took you out of the darkness… I have been looking for you." For me? "Or, better yet, one of you species." He was doing it again. He was talking about me like I wasn't a person but an animal. Maybe I was… "People in these worlds… Are vile. Their sins and misdeeds are leading to the destruction of our worlds. I need you to get rid of them."

I was shocked. Get rid of them? Does that mean… He wants me to k-kill? "W-what do you mean?"

"This world is full of filth. Ariel, you are going to clean it. You are going to get rid of those who I tell you too." He was completely calm about it.

"W-what?" I felt it for the first time. My first time experiencing panic. I pulled my legs up, hugging them tightly. My eyes were wide under my blind fold.

I felt him move and kneel in front of me, his hand on my thin shoulders. "Ariel, you are to do as I say. You must."

I shook my head hard. "I can't!"

"What have any of these people ever done for you?" I was silent. "That's right. They have done nothing. They do not deserve your protection. But I took you from the darkness. I have done something for you, and it is your duty to do as I wish. You will not have to kill right now. I will train you. But in a year, you will repay your debt to me by killing for me. Do you understand, Ariel?"

He was right. I couldn't refuse after he took me from there. And… he said he was going to teach me. There is so much I don't know…

And I want to learn.


	3. Chapter Two

**Hello, readers. How goes it? Anyway, I've forgotten to put a message on the last two "chapters". **

**Anyway, this is going to be a five to six chapter story. I don't expect to have many readers, but I'm finishing this for myself. It will be the first time I ever actually finish a story. Yay. **

**Rai(RaiPhoenix015): Thanks a lot for the review! I'm glad you like the story.**

**----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- **

All I could hear was the distant ticking of a clock somewhere behind me and a weird scratching sound. I wiggled where I sat Indian Style on the floor with my hands resting palm-up on my knee. I stayed like this for a while, maybe five minutes, before I opened one eye.

I was about to say something, but Farren's voice interrupted me. "That isn't meditating, Ariel."

I flushed. "Yeah, well…" I looked at him. He was sitting in the corner, scrawling on a sheet of paper with a pen. Well, that explained the scratching… His green hair had grown out a very short bit in the past two weeks I had been staying with him. He had given me that time to get used to my surroundings and let my eye sight adjust to the light. Now, I was to begin my training.

"Ariel, try and focus." He looked up. I blinked, meeting his eyes. "Why is this so hard for you?"

"It's so boring! When am I going to learn something cool?" I asked.

Farren laughed slightly. "What? Did you expect me to just teach you how to decompose muscle on your first day of practice?" he asked.

I looked down, feeling foolish. "Yes…" I mumbled.

I heard him stand and come over to me. He kneeled in front of me and smiled at me. "Let me show you what it will feel like when you finally learn how. Only, we will be doing it in reverse. You shall help me reconnect muscle instead of separate it." He pulled a dagger from under his sleeve and pushed his sleeve up. "Don't worry about this. It will be good as new in just a moment." He pushed the dagger onto his arm, the back rather than the inner.

My eyes widened and I reached my hand out, covering the heavily bleeding wound. "What'd you do that for!?"

He hissed in pain slightly before covering my hands with his own. "This will feel odd. Close your eyes." I did as he said. I felt my hands heat up and jumped slightly when an image appeared in my mind. "Shh… It's okay…" he murmured. I swallowed and closed my eyes again.

In my mind was a picture of something… That was bone, wasn't it? And that stuff would be the muscle. It's cut open bad… Slowly, the image began to reform, strings of pale green light threading around the bone and forming a cover. The strands began to close the muscle, fusing the split muscle together again. "Open your eyes."

When I opened my eyes, he moved his hand off of mine and I followed the example, leaving his arm in the air. His arm was covered in blood that was drying. I blinked and pulled a tissue from my pocket and rubbed the sticky layer off of his arm where the wound was… or had been.

Where the wound had been was now perfect, unmarred skin. "Wow…"

"What did you see?" he asked me, his voice as soft as always.

"It was like… I was inside of your arm… There was blood… But then I could see all of your muscle and I could see your bone… I don't know what all the other stuff was though…" I looked at him, my eyes out of their narrowed state and close to innocent. "…I think it was scary."

He nodded. "What did you feel?"

That question was much more confusing then it should have been. What did… I felt… "Nothing."

He smirked. "Ah. Come on, stand up." He stood and I followed his example. "You can have your first lesson."

He took me outside. It was odd… I've never been outside. Until now, that is. Outside of the house was shaded. The trees were casting dark pools of shadow all across the green grass.

"Now. Your first lesson is transportation. I am going to teach you how to use the shadows." Yes! No medita- "But first, you meditate." …Damn.

"Do I have to meditate?" I whined, sounding like the child I was.

"Yes, you do. You have plenty of energy, but it's, I suppose you could say, a mess. You need to organize it before you use it, so you don't explode. Literally." He raised an eyebrow. "…Do you want to explode, Ariel?"

"…Not really." I plopped down beside a tree and moved into the position I had been in earlier. I opened one eye. "…What do I need to do exactly?"

He chuckled. "Close your eyes." I did as he said. "Now, imagine a completely black space. Take a few moments."

I didn't need a few minutes. It was amazingly easy. "Mmhm…"

"Now, imagine a very small white dot in the middle and focus on it. Focus on it until all you can see is white. Slowly, threads of some color of shimmering thread will appear. It will be knotted and tangled. You have to sort through it."

As he finished, I tuned everything out. I focused on the spot. It took, I'm guessing, about three minutes for it to come into focus as he had asked. I could see the faint glimmer of… something appearing. The next moment it was something had snapped. There was string everywhere. Tangles of dark red and orange string jumbled together. I acknowledged something then.

This would take me forever.

When I opened my eyes again, it was almost sunset, there was a dull pounding behind my eyes and Farren was sitting beside me and leaning against the tree. Asleep. My eyebrow twitched. I reached over and shook his shoulder, scowling.

He opened his eyes and blinked. "Done already?"

"…I stopped." Actually, I still had quite a knot left up there.

"Do more." With that, he leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes again. My eyebrow twitched again with irritation before I sank back against the tree and went back into the depths of my mind.


End file.
